Vita gets its own unique region lock

[Malacite]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

You trust Sony but dislike MS? They're all assholes.

FTFY. Nintendo is pretty frustrating as well, in their own way. But there isn't a whole hell of a lot we can do about it, at least not as individuals.

I may prefer Sony's goods over the other two, but I don't trust any of the 3 further than I can spit.

[Armando]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

Just because you don't like Nintendo doesn't mean they're assholes. They know how to treat their customers, even if they don't always give the masses what they want.

You can't really compare Nintendo to a company like Microsoft that won't let games on X-Box Live Arcade unless they get a simultaneous or earlier release, or includes "don't-sue-us" clauses in their terms of service. Is Nintendo in it for the money? Sure. But they're not assholes about it. And they actually ship hardware that works.

[DakAttack]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

And they actually ship hardware that works.

Which is probably because their hardware is so old it's had more time for the kinks to be worked out.

It was clear that Sony was going down a bad road early on; their firmware was cold and unimaginative, and it lacks console support for gaming fundamentals like split-screen coop.

[Raydeus]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

Yeah, in that specific case it would like praising Casio for shipping a 10 year old calculator that works without a hitch.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

Which is probably because their hardware is so old it's had more time for the kinks to be worked out.

Still, its hardware that works. But after the NES, you'd want to make sure your systems didn't have issues, too.

Not to mention today's 3DS firmware update added features, new elements to their existing on-board games and software. They didn't take features away like Sony does.

I think after this generation MS will make a better effort to make a console that actually works for longer than a year. I don't particularly care for their attitude towards exclusivity of DLC content and games, but then, those subscription dollars are exactly what allows them to do that. Meanwhile Playstation Plus isn't convincing enough to subscribe to.

EA, Valve, Sony and MS have the no class-action clause. I'd rage about it if class-action suits actually existed for the good of the consumer rather than helping a law firm laugh all the way to the bank instead. Sadly, is often the latter.

It was clear that Sony was going down a bad road early on; their firmware was cold and unimaginative, and it lacks console support for gaming fundamentals like split-screen coop.

Sony does have every right to protect thier network, though they did a lousy job of it until recently, and discourage piracy. That's not my issue, really, just all the things they take away from the legit consumer to further protect themselves.

Honestly, I still wish for a day where Nintendo and Valve team up and I don't have to even think about or consider MS or Sony. Til such a day arrives, We have to pick our poison and live with it.

And really, MS's poison is looking better than Sony. I'd rather side with the bastard that knows he's a bastard than the jerk who thinks he does you a favor when he's only getting in your way more and more.

Nintendo's just behind, which is more of an asset than an inconvenience at times.

[Armando]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

Which is probably because their hardware is so old it's had more time for the kinks to be worked out.

I admit my own memory isn't exactly a legitimate citation, but I don't recall any console prior to this generation launching with such high defect rates. So while I see what you're getting at, I don't think it's a legitimate excuse. When I say "hardware that works" I also mean "ships complete," which is more than anyone can say for the Vita right now.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

Actually PS2 was so notorious for disc read errors that one of the few successful class action lawsuits brought against Sony was in regards to that very issue.

Kinda why they made sure PS3 wasn't the same way.

If you've ever had the joy of seeing the insides of a PS2, even without a lot of technical kownledge its easy to see the system was rigged to fail. Hell, the '"fix" for the DRE was also what caused them. There's this little white gear that controls the alignment of the DVD lens and over time it just ticks its way out of alignment. First it stops reading blue discs, then its slow to read DVDs. All so you'd have to send it in for repairs, paying nearly the price of the system for the repair

Of course, Sony's threat was that opening up your PS2 voided your warranty. In other words, pay no attention to what's underneath the hood and they'll be happy to take your money so they can fix it just as easily as you could.

[Firewind]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

To be honest the second they announced a "Tales of..." game for the PS Vita I knew this was going to happen. Looks like the Americans are going to get a ton of great games they will never buy, that the UK and Europe want and will never be able to see. Then again it doesn't make it any different then normal. Japan is pretty idiotic when it comes to Europe: two completely different continents with different markets Japan. One likes Madden and FPSs, the other likes FIFA and RPGs *sigh*.

Looks like I'll just end up hacking it then. I have had one pre-ordered for a while and will most likely be trading in the 3DS for it. The only reason I got a 3DS was because GAME had a bunch of second hand ones that were still factory sealed so I got one for the price of a DSi XL (which I wanted to get instead and have regretted not getting instead of a 3DS ever since). All I ever play on the 3DS is Pokemon Black, Devil Survivor, Etrian Oddyssey 1-3 and Radiant Historia anyway. I have Zelda and Resident Evil Mercenaries on the 3DS that sit there untouched because there's far better regular DS games out.

And hopefully Sony Europe will get the idea and start releasing more US only games on the PSN store. It's far easier to do that with a game than it is for a publisher to release a game retail.

Nintendo never picked up on that idea though they really did fail quite badly with the 3DS here. It pretty much bombed from release and the Nintendo store isn't much better. All they sell on the store are shitty and overpriced arcade minigames you used to find on those 20 games in one shovelware discs. The PSN Store has the advantage here of already having a lot of content released and the potential to make up for the region locking by having US only games released over here.

There are several VERY good reasons why mobile gaming is beating the living shit out of handheld gaming in Europe and that is one of them. iOS games and Android games are far cheaper than 3DS games and are a lot better in general.

EDIT: For example: iOS has Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions for less than a cup of coffee. Nintendo eShop will try and charge you the equivalent of $10 for horrible Sodoku games or Game Boy games that you can get for a tenth of the price from E-Bay.

My iPhone 4 cost a lot of money but it's also a device I can bring with me and has all of the smartphone functionality such as radio, music, games, GPS, camera etc that mean I will be using it often enough to justify the price tag.

My 3DS cost a lot of money and all I use it for is to play Pokemon and Atlus games, something I can do on a second hand DS Lite for £50.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

So you're trading in the 3DS - which is getting a Tales game in all regions - for the Vita that might not get a Tales game in every region and you'll hack it to give them reasons to not put it out anywhere.

And we wonder why we can't have nice things.

Also, how much does coffee cost where you live, because when I live FFT:WotL costs sixteen dollars on iOS. I'd hate to go to your Starbucks.

That aside, my standards would have to fall pretty low to even begin to enjoy half of what is on iOS. When the games play to iOS's strengths, they're good, but the so often don't I can't for the life of me see how people find these games enjoyable enough to take them over what 3DS or Vita would offer.

Games like Sword and Sworcery and Infinity Blade are an extremely rare breed on iOS and show really great games can be made on the device, there's just too much garbage and ripped-off games and no regulation on the App Store for me to regularly trust it as a source for games. I'd rather play them on a device made for games rather than games be something else it can do. My iphone is for social media, web browsing and phone calls and very seldom used for games.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

Ladies and Gentlemen, Sony has come forward to clarify this false information previously reported!

You CAN have multiple accounts, but your PSN ID is tied to your memory card forever unless you send it in for a factory reset.

So you can have as many accounts as you want, so long as you keep buying the memory cards.

[Icemage]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

Actually, you can factory reset the card along with the machine through the system menu, just as you can with a PS3. As I mentioned before, the crux of the issue seems to be that your PSN profile is logged into each memory card - because the unit itself doesn't have enough standard storage to hold stuff like your trophies.

It's still stupid, but it's not the sort of consumer-hating conspiracy you've been suggesting, BBQ. I think the dedicated memory card setup is stupid, but the actual scheme of one-profile-saved-onto-each-memory-card isn't, in itself, a problem; the memory cards themselves are.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

It all could have been avoided if Sony just bit swallowed their pride and got behind the market leader on memory, even as annoying as it is that the thing has no on-board memory whatsoever. I'd have a Vita on pre-order right now and be making every effort to pay it off had the memory card prices been comparable to SD. Hell, I would have gotten the 32 GB card had it not cost almost the same as a DSi or iTouch.

To get what I want, Sony's basically asking me to jailbreak a Vita or just not buy one at all. That's really what it comes down to

[Icemage]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

I'm sure someone will come along with a hack or some other R4-like device that will let you attach a normal SDHC memory card to a Vita sooner or later. In the mean time, it's not like the Vita launch lineup is "that" amazing. It's a lot better than the 3DS's launch lineup by comparison, but that's only because the 3DS launch lineup was frankly, quite awful - and to at least some extent that has been addressed by Nintendo. You're not going to lose anything by taking a wait and see approach toward the Vita either way.

Personally, I'm still on the fence about it. 3 games is my litmus test for buying any console, and the Vita isn't quite there yet. Gravity Rush, Escape Plan, and Uncharted: Golden Abyss are all interesting, but I want to see a bit more about those games before I commit.

There's also this peculiar rumor about the cost of Vita games over PSN:
Rumor: Downloading PSN Games On Vita 40% Cheaper Than Retail - News - www.GameInformer.com

Granted, it's a rumor, but if buying the games digitally means I can save ~$15 per game, then I'm at least "a bit" more OK with taking a one-time hit with the memory cards.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

I may just go get another PSP or a PSP Go with the way Vita is right now. Its true that there's nothing absolutely amazing lined up for Vitga yet, but like 3DS its going to be where more of the Atlus stuff shows up than I can expect for that to happen on consoles. So its a bit of a downer to see Persona 4:The Golden being made for it and then being given a list of rather legitimate reasons not to want a Vita.

For things like 3DS and Vita I'm mostly willing to put up with a launch so long as I still have access to my old games. In that regard before selling my PSP expecting I'd just replace it with Vita I had moved most of my purchases to digital. So long as I have my Persona and Final Fantasy to go, I'm good. But then you see Sony just massively fucking up the digital end of the device through sheer paranoia, which doesn't make me happy at all.

I don't level the comparison of iOS or NIntendo against Vita because I have a raging hard-on for them, but that they simply do not have that sense of panic nor do they perpetuate the self-fufilling prophecies Sony is. Piracy is a problem and I'm not trying to diminish it in any way, but when you foster good will with consumers it does tend to be less of a problem. Sony tends to exaggerate the impact (but then, they have historically as a company, be it entertainment or gaming) and make matters worse.

I think when Ubi Soft starts backing out of what made matters worse for them - DRM - its time to take notice that some of these practices as they pertain to piracy or even combating the used market do more to antagonize the consumer than appeal to them. Had Sony not been so intent on taking things away from PS3, we wouldn't have had that legendary network hack this year.

[Firewind]

Re: Vita gets its own unique region lock

So you're trading in the 3DS - which is getting a Tales game in all regions - for the Vita that might not get a Tales game in every region and you'll hack it to give them reasons to not put it out anywhere.

Yes because hacking a region locked console to play a region locked game then importing a region locked game at great personal expense makes me a fucking pirate. You cannot seriously expect me to buy two Vitas, one American and one UK, just to knock you down off that pedestal.

Personally, I'm still on the fence about it. 3 games is my litmus test for buying any console, and the Vita isn't quite there yet. Gravity Rush, Escape Plan, and Uncharted: Golden Abyss are all interesting, but I want to see a bit more about those games before I commit.

I do the same with consoles but the problem I have with the 3DS is that there are not three games out that I will actually play. I have Zelda OoT (that I rarely play anyway) and I have RE: Mercenaries (which I already had anyway because I have RE5 on the PS3...) that came with the console because GAME were selling bundles and they also had second hand 3DS consoles that were still factory sealed, so I got the console bundle for £50 less.

Also look at it fro mthe point of view for a gamer in Europe:

Blazblue: CS - Already have it on the PS3
Next Etrian Odyssey Game - Just the title has been announced, No Euro release announced but it's Atlus so it's fairly certain it won't hit Europe.
Next Zelda Game - Doesn't even have it's title announced. No Euro release announced
Mario Kart 7 - I already have Mario Kart Wii and let's face it, if you have one Mario Kart game you have them all
Metal Gear Solid 3 - Doesn't have a Euro release confirmed and I have it on the PS2 anyway
Monster Hunter Tri - Already have it, no Euro release announced
Professor Layton - No Euro release announced
Phoenix Wright - No Euro release announced
Resident Evil Revelations - No Euro release announced
Rune Factory 4 - HAHAHAHAHA okay I don't think we will ever get a Rune Factory game here
New SMT, New Persona, Devil Survivor Overclocked - All Atlus games so it's unlikely that any of these will ever hit Europe.
Super Mario 3D - See Mario Kart 7
Tales of the Abyss - Already have it on the PS2 and there is no new content to justify owning another copy. But of course hacking my PS2 to play import games makes me a pirate so apparently I would never buy any of the above according to BBQ, even though any three of the above games being viable to own for me would mean I'll keep my 3DS.
About two thirds of the content of the Nintendo Store - Pretty much unavailable across Europe